To really find out about the Phelps clan I recommend reading the book "Addicted to Hate". Officially it was entered into record as a document in a law case and comes and goes on the internet. This is a current location: http://blank.org/addict/
The first time I saw Phelps was in 1998 in gay press. A young guy called Matthew Shepherd had been found tied to a fence, he had been beaten and tortured and had been left hanging there for some 20 hours. He died some days later and the two men who murdered him were arrested.
Matthew Shepherd's family, in a state of desperate bereavement, attended the funeral of their son and found the grave site covered in screaming hateful "anti-fag" protestors who were exalting in the murder of an ordinary young guy.
Matthew Shepherd's friends and schoolmates had been forwarned of this and had made it their mission to stand guard at the funeral. They wore white and held their arms wide to try and shield the grieving family.
The pictures from that funeral are burned in my memory forever. How could someone be so cruel and callous to cheer and celebrate a horrific murder? How could they? The answer was - be Fred Phelps. That nasty little bastard even raised a legal action to try and build a public memorial in the Shepherd's home town to cheer and rub salt in the wounds of the family.
The only good thing about what I guess is the Theroux documentary is that it showed Phelps as an old, infirm and apparently demented prick who will hopefully die soon. I would dearly love to join a queue of people to take a piss on the old cunts grave.